When You're a Stranger 3/4
When You're a Stranger (3/4)
A/N: Links to earlier chapters at the bottom of the page.
Damien wakes up to an empty bed, a full bladder, and the smell of coffee brewing. It takes him a few minutes to figure out where he is and what he's doing there, but when he does he's off the bed and on his feet faster than he thought he was capable of moving.
He tries three doors before finding the bathroom, which is small and furnished with a stack of moth-eaten towels and a cracked sliver of harsh soap on the edge of the sink. In the light of day, this whole house exudes an air of faint neglect, like nobody's really lived here for a while. It makes Damien feel vaguely sad for no real reason he can put his finger on.
When he shuffles into the kitchen, Barnes is already there, carefully buttering a stack of toast. He glances up when Damien comes in and gives him a sleepy smile, and for a minute it's just like any other Saturday morning. Except for the fact that instead of their sleek little kitchen with a whiteboard on one wall and a Star Trek poster on the other, they're still in Bobby Singer's house, and there are jars of things Damien isn't sure he wants to identify sitting on the counter next to the coffee maker. Coffee smells fantastic, though, so he decides not to worry about it.
"How are you feeling?" Damien asks cautiously. Barnes shrugs, which Damien takes to mean that his command of the English language hasn't yet returned. His color is better this morning, though, and he's eating, which already makes this a vast improvement over the past week. "Where's Bobby?"
Barnes gestures with a piece of toast at the front porch. The screen door is open, and the breeze winding in is just a few degrees shy of crisp. It's early; there are still long shadows stretched across the kitchen floor and the air tastes faintly damp, no hint of the dry heat that Damien knows is coming later on.
It feels like the beginning of a beautiful day. Later, he'll think that that, right there, should have been his first warning.
***
Damien's seated cautiously at the kitchen table, sipping coffee from a chipped green mug, when Bobby rolls back inside. He spares Damien a brief glance before wheeling himself over to the sink and dumping his own mug in. "'Morning."
"Good morning," Damien says back, carefully. Under the table, Barnes nudges his foot. Damien nudges him back, takes another drink of his coffee, tries to think. Now that Barnes isn't acting like an escapee from Girl, Interrupted, Damien's brimming with questions, but he's not sure whether or not he's allowed to ask any of them. Maybe it's like the first rule of Fight Club, or something. You do not talk about ghost-hunting. "Uh--"
"Gave him the second dose before you got up," Bobby says. "Should take pretty soon, but you might as well stick around until we know for sure."
"Thank you," Damien says, while Barnes nods fervently. "So--"
A shrill ringing splits the air before he can finish the word, and his hands fly up involuntarily to his ears. The phone, he realizes belatedly. There's a whole line of them on the wall by the door, all labeled in permanent marker and masking tape.
"Shit," Bobby mutters, spinning across the kitchen and grabbing unerringly for the phone nearest the window. "What in hell have you idjits got yourselves into now?" he barks into the receiver without preamble.
Then, quieter, "Oh, hell. Coulda had better timing, you know. I got folks here. They got--Well, God damn it, what do you want me to do? Just get your asses over here, pronto. Yeah. Yeah, now stop yapping and start driving."
He hangs up and turns to face them, grim-faced. "We got a problem."
Barnes swallows audibly.
"Sir?" Damien says cautiously.
"That was Dean," says Bobby, and the tone of his voice chases away any thrill Damien might be feeling at the mention of the name. "They're on their way, and they're bringing a boatload of trouble with them. If you boys don't want to get caught up in the middle of it, you best be on your way now."
"What kind of trouble?" Damien hears himself ask. Bobby's eyes narrow to slits beneath the tattered brim of his hat.
"Nothing you want to be mixed up in, believe me. And it's--oh hell." He turns suddenly, as though in response to something that neither of them can hear. "Damn it."
"What?" Damien says, distantly proud to hear that his voice doesn't shake even a little. Even if it has gone up about an octave.
"Change of plans," Bobby says, terrifyingly. "Something outside's whaling on the border wards. Whatever's on their tail, it's already here." He grimaces, shoves his hat back to run his fingers through tangled, iron-gray hair. "Afraid you two are stuck here for the duration. Ain't much that could get past those hex bags we planted, but anybody leaving the property is fair game."
"Sam and Dean--"
"They got hex bags, all we can do now is wait here, hope they make it through. Pray," he spits, like the word's a curse.
"What--" Barnes says suddenly. His voice is raspy, but in spite of everything it's the best thing Damien's heard all day. He clears his throat and tries again, voice stronger this time. "What can we do to help?"
***
The answer, as it turns out, is not much. Bobby loads his shotgun and goes out onto the porch to stare at the driveway, fingers drumming absently against the wheel of his chair. After a moment, Damien follows him. The yard is flooded with sunlight, gleaming on the chrome of dozens of junkers and outlining blades of grass in sharp relief. It's almost impossible to believe, looking at it, that there are monsters or demons or--something--prowling around the edges of the property, but Bobby's tension communicates itself to Damien and he finds himself shifting his weight back and forth, hands jammed in his pockets.
After five minutes or so of Bobby saying absolutely nothing, he feels like he might spontaneously combust from nerves. "I'm just gonna--" he says, and motions vaguely at the door. Bobby grunts something that might be acknowledgment and doesn't take his eyes off the dusty stretch of road winding out the front gate.
Inside, Barnes is at the sink, washing dishes. He always cleans when he's nervous, and it's so normal, so Barnes, that Damien feels a little of his tension bleed away in spite of himself. "Hey," he says gently.
"Are there any more coffee cups over on the table?" Barnes asks, voice high and tight.
"I think you've already washed everything in this kitchen," Damien says, looking around.
"Oh God," Barnes says suddenly, turning to lean his butt against the sink and putting both hands over his face. "We're gonna die."
Damien crosses the kitchen and pulls him in close. "We're not going to die," he whispers against Barnes' cheek. "I promise, we're not going to die."
Barnes sniffs. "I just feel so useless, you know? I mean, it's all real, it's Sam and Dean and Bobby and if I could just do something it wouldn't be so bad but I'm just sitting here washing dishes and--"
"Calm down," Damien murmurs, pulling him in closer. His t-shirt is damp with nervous sweat and he hasn't had a shower in a couple of days, but Damien doesn't care at all. "I'm not going to let anything happen to you, you dork."
Barnes huffs out a small, wet laugh against Damien's hair, and doesn't say anything else. For a few minutes, they just stand there, embracing in the empty kitchen, and at first Damien thinks the dull roar he's hearing is just the echo of blood pounding in his ears. Then Barnes lifts his head too, and he realizes that the sound is coming from out front. Barnes comes to the same conclusion at almost the same moment as Damien, and there's a brief tangle of limbs when they both try to scurry toward the door.
They make it out to the front porch in time to see a big black muscle car speed underneath the sign for Singer Salvage, hurtling toward the house with no sign of slowing down. Dean's '67 Chevy Impala, and even under the circumstances Damien can't quite keep his breath from catching in his throat when the driver jacknifes to a stop a few yards from the porch, spitting gravel and dust everywhere. Then he glances up at the road behind them, and his breath catches for an entirely different reason.
For a wild instant, he thinks it's a low-flying thunderhead or something, the roiling cloud of darkness that manages to simultaneously give the impression of oily smoke and a writhing knot of black snakes barreling toward the farmhouse. It gets as far as the junkyard sign, and it's like there's a glass wall--bulletproof glass, he thinks, hysterically--wrapped around the property; the thing breaks against an invisible plane and speeds off in all different directions.
"Holy shit," Barnes murmurs, bug-eyed. Bobby glances back at them.
"You," he says to Damien. "Get on down there and give them a hand."
"I--what?"
"Now is not the time to be squeamish," Bobby snaps, like that was his problem, but this is so not the time to have a debate about it. He nearly trips on the porch steps, stumbles hard, recovers just as the engine cuts off. The filthy, blood-spattered man who bursts out of the driver's side door is unmistakeably the same guy he met at the convention, and Damien's brain stutters a little, reality and fiction crashing together in a way that's almost painful.
Dean barely glances at him. "You a friend of Bobby's?"
"I--um--yeah."
"Good. Some help here?" He's jerking open the back door as he speaks, and when Damien gets a look at what's inside, he forgets about his panic and his disorientation and everything else. The man sprawled out in the back seat looks as though he's been beaten within an inch of his life; his face is a gruesome patchwork of bruises and he's leaking blood all over the place. He's not moving. "Get his feet," Dean says shortly, and begins hauling the guy out.
Damien wants to say something about stretchers and backboards, but then his arms are full of limp, bloody legs and it's either lift or drop. He lifts. The man isn't all that big, but he's heavier than Damien would have expected, even with Dean taking half the weight. Distantly, he notices the passenger door slam shut, sees a tall figure that must be Sam unfolding himself from the seat. He's clutching his right arm, and there's something very wrong about the angle of his elbow but Damien can't pay attention to that now. He stumbles when Dean begins to walk, then regains his footing and carefully matches pace with him as they climb the steps.
"Jesus," Bobby says, sounding shaken. "You weren't kidding."
"Yeah, because this is totally something I'd fucking joke about," Dean snarls.
Bobby shakes his head. "Christ. You don't do things by halves, do you? You, boy--Barnes--get the door."
In the living room, Sam clears the couch off with a gigantic sweep of his good arm, dumping books and bags and scrolls onto the moth-eaten carpet, and they set the man down. Damien stands up, wiping his bloody hands on his shorts, but Dean sinks to his knees beside the couch and strokes the man's dark hair away from his face. His fingers are gentle, but when he looks up his face looks like it's been carved from pale stone.
"Okay," Bobby says behind Damien. "You want to tell me what the hell happened?"
"I don't fucking know, okay? Couple of demons just dropped him in our hotel room, but there's no way those sons of bitches could do something like this to Cas." Dean sounds tense and furious. And frightened, which was something that was never really in the books. If Damien wasn't already shaking in his shoes, that sound would definitely do the trick. Dean is supposed to be the hero. He's supposed to be invincible.
Dean isn't looking heroic or invincible right now. He looks tired and worried and unexpectedly human, and when the man on the couch mumbles something, Dean touches his cheek and leans down to murmur anxiously in his ear. Close as he's standing, Damien still can't make out the words, but he understands the tone just fine. It's the one he was using himself on Barnes fifteen minutes ago. The one that says calm down, it's okay, I'm here.
Huh.
Barnes catches his eyes from the doorway, brows raised, but if Sam or Bobby notice anything unusual, they don't comment on it. "--tell me what happened?" Bobby is saying quietly.
"Low-level," Sam says in a pale, faded kind of voice. He's cradling his right arm against his chest. "We took care of them, but next thing we know there's a swarm of the bastards on our tail. Bobby, they were after him, not us. We barely got him out to the car in one piece."
"That ain't good. How's your arm?"
Sam winces. "I was trying not to think about that, thanks. Elbow's dislocated. I'll be fine. Take care of Castiel."
The man on the couch--Castiel--flails suddenly, violently, clutching Dean's arms and hauling himself up. His eyes fly open, and they're a dazed and vivid blue. "έρχονται," he gasps. "μπορώ να τους σταματήσω. χρειάζομαι--"
"Shit," Dean mutters. "Sam?"
"He's disoriented," Sam says. "The last time he was on earth--"
"--fucking Agamemnon was storming the gates of Troy," Dean says furiously. "Cas. Cas, come on, man, you gotta speak English."
"δαίμονες," the man mutters. "έρχονται δαίμονες--"
"Cas. Dude, we can't understand you. Please--"
"He says that demons are coming."
It's Barnes' voice. The room goes abruptly and entirely silent., and Damien feels his mouth falling open as he turns. "What?"
"He says that demons are coming," Barnes repeats. His face is ashen and his eyes are huge, but he looks resolute. "He says he can stop them. I can understand him."
"Woah," Dean says. He's looking between Barnes and Damien like he's really seeing them for the first time since he arrived. "It's you guys. What are you doing here?"
TBC...
A/N #2: This chapter did not want to come out. Please forgive any literary sins I may have committed in the writing of it; I've done my best.
What Cas says can be translated, more or less, as "They're coming, I can stop them. I need--" and "Demons. Demons are coming." Again if you actually speak Greek, please feel free to correct my translations; I'm sure I've made a few errors :)
Part 2 Part 4
A/N: Links to earlier chapters at the bottom of the page.
Damien wakes up to an empty bed, a full bladder, and the smell of coffee brewing. It takes him a few minutes to figure out where he is and what he's doing there, but when he does he's off the bed and on his feet faster than he thought he was capable of moving.
He tries three doors before finding the bathroom, which is small and furnished with a stack of moth-eaten towels and a cracked sliver of harsh soap on the edge of the sink. In the light of day, this whole house exudes an air of faint neglect, like nobody's really lived here for a while. It makes Damien feel vaguely sad for no real reason he can put his finger on.
When he shuffles into the kitchen, Barnes is already there, carefully buttering a stack of toast. He glances up when Damien comes in and gives him a sleepy smile, and for a minute it's just like any other Saturday morning. Except for the fact that instead of their sleek little kitchen with a whiteboard on one wall and a Star Trek poster on the other, they're still in Bobby Singer's house, and there are jars of things Damien isn't sure he wants to identify sitting on the counter next to the coffee maker. Coffee smells fantastic, though, so he decides not to worry about it.
"How are you feeling?" Damien asks cautiously. Barnes shrugs, which Damien takes to mean that his command of the English language hasn't yet returned. His color is better this morning, though, and he's eating, which already makes this a vast improvement over the past week. "Where's Bobby?"
Barnes gestures with a piece of toast at the front porch. The screen door is open, and the breeze winding in is just a few degrees shy of crisp. It's early; there are still long shadows stretched across the kitchen floor and the air tastes faintly damp, no hint of the dry heat that Damien knows is coming later on.
It feels like the beginning of a beautiful day. Later, he'll think that that, right there, should have been his first warning.
***
Damien's seated cautiously at the kitchen table, sipping coffee from a chipped green mug, when Bobby rolls back inside. He spares Damien a brief glance before wheeling himself over to the sink and dumping his own mug in. "'Morning."
"Good morning," Damien says back, carefully. Under the table, Barnes nudges his foot. Damien nudges him back, takes another drink of his coffee, tries to think. Now that Barnes isn't acting like an escapee from Girl, Interrupted, Damien's brimming with questions, but he's not sure whether or not he's allowed to ask any of them. Maybe it's like the first rule of Fight Club, or something. You do not talk about ghost-hunting. "Uh--"
"Gave him the second dose before you got up," Bobby says. "Should take pretty soon, but you might as well stick around until we know for sure."
"Thank you," Damien says, while Barnes nods fervently. "So--"
A shrill ringing splits the air before he can finish the word, and his hands fly up involuntarily to his ears. The phone, he realizes belatedly. There's a whole line of them on the wall by the door, all labeled in permanent marker and masking tape.
"Shit," Bobby mutters, spinning across the kitchen and grabbing unerringly for the phone nearest the window. "What in hell have you idjits got yourselves into now?" he barks into the receiver without preamble.
Then, quieter, "Oh, hell. Coulda had better timing, you know. I got folks here. They got--Well, God damn it, what do you want me to do? Just get your asses over here, pronto. Yeah. Yeah, now stop yapping and start driving."
He hangs up and turns to face them, grim-faced. "We got a problem."
Barnes swallows audibly.
"Sir?" Damien says cautiously.
"That was Dean," says Bobby, and the tone of his voice chases away any thrill Damien might be feeling at the mention of the name. "They're on their way, and they're bringing a boatload of trouble with them. If you boys don't want to get caught up in the middle of it, you best be on your way now."
"What kind of trouble?" Damien hears himself ask. Bobby's eyes narrow to slits beneath the tattered brim of his hat.
"Nothing you want to be mixed up in, believe me. And it's--oh hell." He turns suddenly, as though in response to something that neither of them can hear. "Damn it."
"What?" Damien says, distantly proud to hear that his voice doesn't shake even a little. Even if it has gone up about an octave.
"Change of plans," Bobby says, terrifyingly. "Something outside's whaling on the border wards. Whatever's on their tail, it's already here." He grimaces, shoves his hat back to run his fingers through tangled, iron-gray hair. "Afraid you two are stuck here for the duration. Ain't much that could get past those hex bags we planted, but anybody leaving the property is fair game."
"Sam and Dean--"
"They got hex bags, all we can do now is wait here, hope they make it through. Pray," he spits, like the word's a curse.
"What--" Barnes says suddenly. His voice is raspy, but in spite of everything it's the best thing Damien's heard all day. He clears his throat and tries again, voice stronger this time. "What can we do to help?"
***
The answer, as it turns out, is not much. Bobby loads his shotgun and goes out onto the porch to stare at the driveway, fingers drumming absently against the wheel of his chair. After a moment, Damien follows him. The yard is flooded with sunlight, gleaming on the chrome of dozens of junkers and outlining blades of grass in sharp relief. It's almost impossible to believe, looking at it, that there are monsters or demons or--something--prowling around the edges of the property, but Bobby's tension communicates itself to Damien and he finds himself shifting his weight back and forth, hands jammed in his pockets.
After five minutes or so of Bobby saying absolutely nothing, he feels like he might spontaneously combust from nerves. "I'm just gonna--" he says, and motions vaguely at the door. Bobby grunts something that might be acknowledgment and doesn't take his eyes off the dusty stretch of road winding out the front gate.
Inside, Barnes is at the sink, washing dishes. He always cleans when he's nervous, and it's so normal, so Barnes, that Damien feels a little of his tension bleed away in spite of himself. "Hey," he says gently.
"Are there any more coffee cups over on the table?" Barnes asks, voice high and tight.
"I think you've already washed everything in this kitchen," Damien says, looking around.
"Oh God," Barnes says suddenly, turning to lean his butt against the sink and putting both hands over his face. "We're gonna die."
Damien crosses the kitchen and pulls him in close. "We're not going to die," he whispers against Barnes' cheek. "I promise, we're not going to die."
Barnes sniffs. "I just feel so useless, you know? I mean, it's all real, it's Sam and Dean and Bobby and if I could just do something it wouldn't be so bad but I'm just sitting here washing dishes and--"
"Calm down," Damien murmurs, pulling him in closer. His t-shirt is damp with nervous sweat and he hasn't had a shower in a couple of days, but Damien doesn't care at all. "I'm not going to let anything happen to you, you dork."
Barnes huffs out a small, wet laugh against Damien's hair, and doesn't say anything else. For a few minutes, they just stand there, embracing in the empty kitchen, and at first Damien thinks the dull roar he's hearing is just the echo of blood pounding in his ears. Then Barnes lifts his head too, and he realizes that the sound is coming from out front. Barnes comes to the same conclusion at almost the same moment as Damien, and there's a brief tangle of limbs when they both try to scurry toward the door.
They make it out to the front porch in time to see a big black muscle car speed underneath the sign for Singer Salvage, hurtling toward the house with no sign of slowing down. Dean's '67 Chevy Impala, and even under the circumstances Damien can't quite keep his breath from catching in his throat when the driver jacknifes to a stop a few yards from the porch, spitting gravel and dust everywhere. Then he glances up at the road behind them, and his breath catches for an entirely different reason.
For a wild instant, he thinks it's a low-flying thunderhead or something, the roiling cloud of darkness that manages to simultaneously give the impression of oily smoke and a writhing knot of black snakes barreling toward the farmhouse. It gets as far as the junkyard sign, and it's like there's a glass wall--bulletproof glass, he thinks, hysterically--wrapped around the property; the thing breaks against an invisible plane and speeds off in all different directions.
"Holy shit," Barnes murmurs, bug-eyed. Bobby glances back at them.
"You," he says to Damien. "Get on down there and give them a hand."
"I--what?"
"Now is not the time to be squeamish," Bobby snaps, like that was his problem, but this is so not the time to have a debate about it. He nearly trips on the porch steps, stumbles hard, recovers just as the engine cuts off. The filthy, blood-spattered man who bursts out of the driver's side door is unmistakeably the same guy he met at the convention, and Damien's brain stutters a little, reality and fiction crashing together in a way that's almost painful.
Dean barely glances at him. "You a friend of Bobby's?"
"I--um--yeah."
"Good. Some help here?" He's jerking open the back door as he speaks, and when Damien gets a look at what's inside, he forgets about his panic and his disorientation and everything else. The man sprawled out in the back seat looks as though he's been beaten within an inch of his life; his face is a gruesome patchwork of bruises and he's leaking blood all over the place. He's not moving. "Get his feet," Dean says shortly, and begins hauling the guy out.
Damien wants to say something about stretchers and backboards, but then his arms are full of limp, bloody legs and it's either lift or drop. He lifts. The man isn't all that big, but he's heavier than Damien would have expected, even with Dean taking half the weight. Distantly, he notices the passenger door slam shut, sees a tall figure that must be Sam unfolding himself from the seat. He's clutching his right arm, and there's something very wrong about the angle of his elbow but Damien can't pay attention to that now. He stumbles when Dean begins to walk, then regains his footing and carefully matches pace with him as they climb the steps.
"Jesus," Bobby says, sounding shaken. "You weren't kidding."
"Yeah, because this is totally something I'd fucking joke about," Dean snarls.
Bobby shakes his head. "Christ. You don't do things by halves, do you? You, boy--Barnes--get the door."
In the living room, Sam clears the couch off with a gigantic sweep of his good arm, dumping books and bags and scrolls onto the moth-eaten carpet, and they set the man down. Damien stands up, wiping his bloody hands on his shorts, but Dean sinks to his knees beside the couch and strokes the man's dark hair away from his face. His fingers are gentle, but when he looks up his face looks like it's been carved from pale stone.
"Okay," Bobby says behind Damien. "You want to tell me what the hell happened?"
"I don't fucking know, okay? Couple of demons just dropped him in our hotel room, but there's no way those sons of bitches could do something like this to Cas." Dean sounds tense and furious. And frightened, which was something that was never really in the books. If Damien wasn't already shaking in his shoes, that sound would definitely do the trick. Dean is supposed to be the hero. He's supposed to be invincible.
Dean isn't looking heroic or invincible right now. He looks tired and worried and unexpectedly human, and when the man on the couch mumbles something, Dean touches his cheek and leans down to murmur anxiously in his ear. Close as he's standing, Damien still can't make out the words, but he understands the tone just fine. It's the one he was using himself on Barnes fifteen minutes ago. The one that says calm down, it's okay, I'm here.
Huh.
Barnes catches his eyes from the doorway, brows raised, but if Sam or Bobby notice anything unusual, they don't comment on it. "--tell me what happened?" Bobby is saying quietly.
"Low-level," Sam says in a pale, faded kind of voice. He's cradling his right arm against his chest. "We took care of them, but next thing we know there's a swarm of the bastards on our tail. Bobby, they were after him, not us. We barely got him out to the car in one piece."
"That ain't good. How's your arm?"
Sam winces. "I was trying not to think about that, thanks. Elbow's dislocated. I'll be fine. Take care of Castiel."
The man on the couch--Castiel--flails suddenly, violently, clutching Dean's arms and hauling himself up. His eyes fly open, and they're a dazed and vivid blue. "έρχονται," he gasps. "μπορώ να τους σταματήσω. χρειάζομαι--"
"Shit," Dean mutters. "Sam?"
"He's disoriented," Sam says. "The last time he was on earth--"
"--fucking Agamemnon was storming the gates of Troy," Dean says furiously. "Cas. Cas, come on, man, you gotta speak English."
"δαίμονες," the man mutters. "έρχονται δαίμονες--"
"Cas. Dude, we can't understand you. Please--"
"He says that demons are coming."
It's Barnes' voice. The room goes abruptly and entirely silent., and Damien feels his mouth falling open as he turns. "What?"
"He says that demons are coming," Barnes repeats. His face is ashen and his eyes are huge, but he looks resolute. "He says he can stop them. I can understand him."
"Woah," Dean says. He's looking between Barnes and Damien like he's really seeing them for the first time since he arrived. "It's you guys. What are you doing here?"
TBC...
A/N #2: This chapter did not want to come out. Please forgive any literary sins I may have committed in the writing of it; I've done my best.
What Cas says can be translated, more or less, as "They're coming, I can stop them. I need--" and "Demons. Demons are coming." Again if you actually speak Greek, please feel free to correct my translations; I'm sure I've made a few errors :)
Part 2 Part 4